Subject: Re: [DGD] Solving a Persistence Problem - Puzzles and Quest Objects
From: David Jackson
Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 02:20:41 -0500

At 04:03 AM 9/7/2004, you wrote:

>  --- David Jackson wrote:
> >
>
>Flag the puzzle or the player, so that each player can only do said
>quest/puzzle once.
>Give the puzzle a reset-time so that multiple people can't be doing the
>puzzle at the same time.
>Thus allowing anyone to do the puzzle but no 2 people at the same time, and
>no one person twice.
>Perhaps?
>

Following Stephen Schmidt and Noah Gibbs (and your) excellent suggestions, 
I compiled this result;

A "gremlin" (or, in my case, the Dungeon Master) has a fixed set of rooms 
which he will move to, one at a time, based on a fixed delay.  The rooms he 
moves to are rooms containing puzzles (or items required for puzzles), or 
quest items.
He resets the rooms to an untouched state.

The player can complete puzzles any number of times - but he will not 
receive a score for any completion past the first one.

Additionally, he can gather quest/treasure items, and return them to the 
"Trophy Case".  When he does, that quest/treasure item is recorded in a 
list, so that he can no longer gain points from that treasure (this 
mechanism is the same for solving puzzles).

If he encounters those items after he has scored points for them, he can 
see them, but he can no longer pick them up (an error message of, "you have 
already gathered this treasure, and find no interest in gathering it again").

However, he may still pick up items required to solve puzzles (this ability 
is still a subject for debate), and may still complete puzzles.  This is 
under the assumption that certain puzzles will unlock other areas of the 
game, which he may need access to.

The basic paradigm is for a "puzzle solving, treasure gathering" MUD, where 
the emphasis is on exploration and overcoming obstacles, rather than the 
"fight monsters/gather loot/fight bigger monsters" treadmill.

David Jackson